Beauty Health for Life

Dear Panzanella,

I admit it. You had me fooled.

I knew you were essentially bread and tomato salad. I knew you included other foods – olives, onions, herbs – for kicks. I knew people liked you, and you were a staple of Italian cuisine.

But I never considered you to be healthy.

You seemed to be excessively rich. You had too much olive oil. You contained obscene amounts of cheese.

How much cheese constitutes an “obscene” amount of cheese? It’s a lot, lemme tell you.

So, I never made you, Panzanella.

Oh, I dreamt of you, to be sure. Your squishy, tomato-soaked baguette. Your red onion crescents, just enough to provide a little punch. Your fresh basil, sprinkled like verdant ribbons across the plate.

But then, one day, Moosewood’s Simple Suppers came along. Finding the cookbook was a fluke. Serendipity. A trip to the library gone wonderfully right. Five recipes tried, five winners consumed.

And you were the last.

And you were the best.

You had so much flavor, and so little extraneous oil. Heck, to be totally honest, the first night, I even found you a tiny bit dry. But when Husband-Elect slaughtered two filled-to-the-brim bowls without coming up for air, I knew we were on to something.

It’s pretty common knowledge that if you let certain foods sit for a day or two (chili, soup, etc.) their flavors will meld and improve. Boy, Panzanella, was that ever the case with you.

Forty-eight hours later, you were PERFECT. I could have cried.

I almost did, when I finally finished you.

Summer Panzanella, we can be friends now, right? I’ll make you. You’ll feed me. We’ll all be healthy and happy.

If not, just promise you’ll write.

I love you, as much as any woman can love bread salad.

Wish you were here,
Kris

~~~

If you think this looks like something you might want to eat, you might also want to indulge in:

• Cherry Tomato Crisp
• Roasted Red Pepper, Artichoke, Olive and Parmesan Frittata
• Tomato and Bread Soup

~~~

Summer Panzanella
Serves 4.
Adapted from Moosewood’s Simple Suppers.


1 loaf crusty whole wheat French or Italian Bread (about 8 cups)
4 tomatoes, diced (seeding is optional)
4 ounces part-skim mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chiffonaded (cut into ribbons)
2/3 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Balsamic vinaigrette (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.

2) Fill a small bowl with ice water. Soak red onions ten minutes. Drain.

3) Slice bread in half lengthwise. Place on a baking sheet and bake 5 to 10 minutes, until crisp. Remove and let cool a little. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes. Set aside.

4) To a large serving bowl, add tomatoes, mozzarella, red onion, basil leaves, and olives. Pour red wine vinegar and olive oil over mixture. Stir to combine.

5) Add bread to bowl. Stir thoroughly to combine. Let sit 30 minutes to marinate, stirring once about halfway through. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir again. Serve immediately with vinaigrette if you like OR store it in the fridge for a day or two, then serve. It will be phenomenal.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price Per Serving
320 calories, 13.1 g fat, 5.2 g fiber, 14 g protein, $1.86

NOTE: Numbers for the whole wheat baguette are averaged from Fresh Direct and Calorie King, but your overall calculations may be slightly different depending on your choice of bread. (Oh, and the size of your olives. Mine were pretty huge.) Consequently, take the math this time around to be a bit more of an approximation than usual.

Calculations
1 loaf crusty whole wheat French or Italian Bread (about 8 cups): 580 calories, 5.1 g fat, 13.3 g fiber, 23.1 g protein, $1.99
4 tomatoes: 89 calories, 1 g fat, 5.9 g fiber, 4.3 g protein, $1.96
4 ounces part-skim mozzarella: 288 calories, 18 g fat, 0 g fiber, 27.5 g protein, $0.99
1/2 medium red onion: 23 calories, 0.1 g fat, 0.8 g fiber, 0.5 g protein, $0.21
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves: 6 calories, 0.1 g fat, 0.8 g fiber, 0.5 g protein, $0.99
2/3 cup pitted kalamata olives: 175 calories, 15 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein, $1.11
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, $0.03
1 tablespoon olive oil: 118 calories, 13.4 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein, $0.12
Kosher salt: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, $0.01
Freshly ground black pepper: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, $0.01
TOTAL: 1279 calories, 52.3 g fat, 20.8 g fiber, 55.9 g protein, $7.42
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 320 calories, 13.1 g fat, 5.2 g fiber, 14 g protein, $1.86

While the physician Disease Management Care Blog understands the logic behind essential health benefit determinations, believes good health care includes access to reproductive services and also knows that an unintended pregnancy poses special threats to a womans health, it also sympathizes with the U.S. Catholic Bishops stand on birth control pills. 

Such is the luxury of cognitive dissonance.  Yet, the DMCBs real discomfort is over the broader health policy implications of defining BCPs as an essential health benefit that must be covered with only a few exceptions:

1. There are really two ultimate paths to a federal takeover health care.  The first is obvious: formal through the "nationalization" of either the payment or delivery of services. The second is de facto is through the creation of laws, regulations and standards that amount to an expanding domination of the payment or delivery of services. From an end-user perspective, the DMCB thinks there is little difference between the two and believes we are underestimating the ultimate end game for this and multiple other rules and regulations.

2. Decision-making like this can cut both ways.  While womens health advocates can take comfort in the Obama Administrations courage in the face of the Bishops push-back, its possible that future hyper-rational, inflexible, evidence-based, legalistic, uniformist and technocratic decision-making like this will result in endless legalistic, politically charged and awkward decision-making that will always vex some big constituency.  This is the same science used to provoke the controversy over the merits of mammography in women less than age 50 as well as prostate cancer screening in men.  To make the point, the DMCB poses this silly but troubling thought experiment:  since men are just as responsible and should be given every incentive to not cause unwanted pregnancy, should condoms be an essential health benefit?  If persons with cancer run out of treatment options, should a right to control their own bodies and its technical availability make assisted suicide an essential health benefit? 

This time it was the Catholics turn.  The next one could be yours.

3.  Without some sort of accommodation (which may be in the works), the Bishops arent going to back down.  While a majority of their parishioners may believe in and have used birth control, that test fails at two levels: 1) societys institutions are supposed to stand for a higher standard and 2) decades and even centuries of religious interpretation are not up for a vote.  Standing for something is what faith is all about and Church leaders are simply not going to roll over on insurance that covers birth control for their employees and theyre not going to offer access to birth control pills in the course of the provision of health care. Their only choice, other than millions in fines is to exit the health care arena.  David Brooks has an excellent discussion of why thats a problem. 

4.  It is said that the art of politics is the art of the possible: to work out compromise where everyone can walk away a winner.  While coverage of birth control pills is a victory for womens health advocates that a "base" can feel good about, this is also arguably a failure for a President who was committed to bridging differences and creating a health care system that had broad support.

Image from Wikipedia